I’m a huge fan of Hideo Kojima’s work. I even bought his semi-autobiography and read it twice! That being said, writing a book or creating a video game doesn’t make you impervious to fallibility. This visionary genius has made some questionable choices that are often backed up with meager explanations, or sometimes, none at all. Now, with the Metal Gear Solid Master Collection in the spotlight and MGS alumnae Stefanie Joosten’s retrospective thoughts on the whole “Quiet” thing, it may be fun to dive into some of Kojima’s lesser points.
Long And Tangled Snake
When I personally think of Kojima, the Metal Gear Solid franchise obviously comes to mind, with MGS 1 being my first exposure to the series and the gateway into the Kojima-verse. I remember the boss fights, the cigarettes, and the stealth, but I honestly lost the thread somewhere between MGS 1 and MGS 5 with the convoluted storylines filled with multiple Snakes, philosophical leanings, and the excessive use of retcon. I mean, how many dead people can you lazily justify reviving via “cloning” or some other deus ex machina?
Even Kojima himself admits in interviews that MGS’ plot holes are basically there because he didn’t have the stories assembled properly when he made the games. Fair enough, and an honest answer. Apology accepted, Hideo. All you need to tell a good story is excellent gameplay, memorable characters, and ponderously drawn out cutscenes, right?
Yes, Sam, this game does feel like an uphill grind, doesn’t it?
As a noted fan of film, Kojima’s directorial mind naturally leans into games’ more cinematic moments, but if you can’t get the job done without resorting to an absurd amount of cutscenes, then it’s basically 50% game and 50% movie at this point, and it feels downright disruptive. Titles like Metal Gear Solid 4 and Death Stranding felt an awful lot like an exercise Kojima intentionally put players through to test their loyalty and patience. Like, “if you can survive this, then you’re fit to be my fan”. Case in point, MGS 4 holds the Guinness World record for “Longest Cutscene In A Game” with a whopping 71 minutes. Death Stranding comes in third place with 7 hours of total cutscenes, with one lasting 30 minutes.
All Quiet On The Western Front
Ironically, while Kojima doesn’t seem to go for short, revealing cutscenes or plots, he’s totally on board when it comes to costume choices for female characters. With MGS 4, Kojima and crew’s serious artistic facade began to crack with admittedly more mature content. According to Kotaku, Konami’s original intentions for the Beauty and Beast unit leaked out at the MGS 4 signing event in Shinjuku, in which the costumes were wildly different from what we saw in the game.
Quiet clearly written more as a quirky object.
In Metal Gear Solid V, we’re first introduced to the character of Quiet, the enigmatic and mute sniper whose skin is covered with parasites that need to breathe and absorb sunlight, as one does. Her controversial wardrobe didn’t leave much to the imagination, but hold it! Hideo Kojima says to get your mind out of the gutter because “you just don’t understand how vocal cord parasites work and should be ashamed of yourself”. Whatever you say, Hideo.
Thought you could reel us in with the old “bait-and-switch-protagonist” routine, eh?
Funnily enough, Japanese audiences treated the concept and appearance of Quiet with much less scrutiny and way less pearl-clutching than the West did. Naturally, when bombarded with questions about Quiet’s outfit in America, Kojima attempted to explain to Polygon that her backstory justifies the appearance and stubbornly claimed that the intention was to make Quiet silent and “sexy”. Back home in Japan, it was a different story altogether.
Lost In Translation
At the 2014 Tokyo Game Show, Kojima and the MGS 5 crew spoke at a live panel, along with the famed Dutch model Stefanie Joosten, whom Quiet was voiced and model-captured on. Speaking to his Japanese fans, Kojima revealed that Quiet’s original concept was similar to the Beauty and Beast crew from MSG 4 (again!), which definitely wouldn’t have flown in the States, but what was most interesting at this event was Joosten herself. In fluent Japanese, she expressed her happiness about appearing in the game but stopped short of uttering any comments about the design.
In a recent interview with IGN, Joosten’s thoughts about her legendary character seem to have shifted slightly. While ultimately respecting Kojima’s call on the skimpy outfit, she admits that there were many other options they could’ve gone with. It makes sense that she wouldn’t bite the hand that feeds her, but her comments do touch on the original contention 10 years prior and Kojima’s problem in general.
In a move of empathy and encouragement, Snake growls, “You’re not bad. You were just drawn that way.”
Of course he had other options! The thing is that, instead of coming clean, Kojima doubled down with a preposterous backstory to mask his juvenile proclivities. And I’m not saying Kojima is an unapologetic chauvinist. In MGS’s back-log, fleshed-out female characters like Meryl or Big Boss were excellent and necessary to the plot, but somewhere along the line, priorities shifted with Quiet clearly written more as a quirky object. Essentially, despite Kojima’s arguments, she was a character meant to ogle and sell action figures.
To be honest, Kojima’s aforementioned issues aren’t super egregious, and I love this guy’s stuff. What I can’t abide, though, is an inflated ego. Left unchecked, it eventually curdles into hubris, to the point where your self-perception is that of a demi-god. Strangely enough though, Kojima’s book is all kinds of tender and sentimental, with plenty of admissions and poignant reflection. Maybe one day he’ll follow up with a sequel titled, “Things I May Have Been Wrong About”, but I doubt that. Self-awareness is a commodity to the auteur.